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Another week, another selection of new business ideas from around the world, ready to rouse your inner entrepreneur. This week, we spotted a drive-in cloakroom touring UK festivals, a cheese school in San Francisco, a US venture that's harnessing the wisdom of the crowds to predict the next blockbuster, and more. Our next edition is due on 13 June 2007. In the meantime, check out our daily postings on www.springwise.com, send us your tips, and please don't forget to tell your friends and colleagues about us. Much appreciated! |
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Most summer music festivals take a large toll on the environment. Mountains of waste, car parks, food from afar, diesel generators for electricity, tidal waves of plastic water bottles, flying in international artists... In an effort to do less harm, several music festivals around the world have started putting 'carbon neutral' practices into place, offsetting the carbon dioxide they've caused to enter the atmosphere. A new British student festival is aiming to do more than become carbon neutral. Beach Break Live, a three day event in Cornwall taking place from June 11-14, has taken a number of steps to have an environmentally and socially positive impact. The micro festival (just 3,000 visitors) has organized cheap bus travel for students from their universities, keeping road transit and parking to a minimum. Beach Break Live takes place during a mid-week outside the peak holiday season, which means it's providing the local economy with a boost during downtime. Furthermore, most food and drink will be sourced locally: beef and lamb from neighbourhood farms, beer from Skinner's, a Cornwall brewery, bottled water from a Cornish spring, seafood from Cornish waters, and even toilet paper from a nearby paper recycling plant. By backing the local community and trying to do as little harm to the environment as possible, Beach Break Live incorporates a number of elements of the still made here trend, as laid out by our sister site trendwatching.com. Check out the briefing for more relevant business examples! Website: www.beachbreaklive.com
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Residents and visitors in the Bay Area who want to expand their culinary expertise and sharpen their palates can brush up on their cheddars and bleus at the Cheese School of San Francisco. The school’s curriculum ranges from Cheese 101 courses—Basic Cheese Primer; Cheese Selection, Storage and Service and Cheese and Wine Pairing—to core studies by region and specialized classes in Fondue, Pub Tasting: Cheese and Beer, Farmstead Cheesemaking, Ga-Ga for Goat, Raw vs. Pasteurized: Fact and Fiction and Extreme Cheese. Taught by a faculty of esteemed cheese connoisseurs, individual classes are USD 60 per person, with a discount for taking a series, such as Cheese 101. The school also hosts special seasonal events, such as the St. Patrick's Day special on cheese and beer, and drop-in nights, which offer a sampling of cheeses and cheese knowledge for a reduced rate and without the need for reservations. In addition, the Cheese School is available for private and corporate events, and courses can even be brought to other venues. Gift certificates are also available. Like other status skills, a culinary knowledge of cheese is hardly an essential life skill, but rather a sophisticated and leisurely pursuit. The Cheese School is based in San Francisco and is (obviously) limited to cheese, but there's no reason this concept couldn't take off in other areas where consumers with a lust for knowledge are looking for expertise to wow their friends and associates with. For related examples, check out trendwatching.com’s briefing on status skills. Website: www.cheeseschoolsf.com Spotted by Tina Riter
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Following luxury loos, posh showers and boutique lodging, our latest spotting catering to music festivals and other outdoor events is CloakVroom — a fully mobile cloakroom in a custom-fitted truck. CloakVroom is staffed 24 hours a day to provide event-goers with peace of mind, and offer event organisers a hassle-free drive-in facility. The mobile service goes the extra mile: customers are given a numbered wristband with CloakVroom's mobile number and website. If anyone leaves an item behind, they can reclaim it by contacting CloakVroom, which will mail the goods back to them. The company was launched last month by M40 Media, an agency that specialises in event sponsorship and festival publications. After 10 years of working with festivals, they noticed a growing need for secure on-site storage, and voila — CloakVroom was born. According to Gary Pitt, CloakVroom's founder, his fledgling venture has received unprecedented interest and the vehicle is booked at an event every weekend until the end of September. CloakVroom's service will be on offer at Wild in the Country Knebworth, Bestival, The V Festival, Creamfields, Cornbury Festival, The Secret Garden Party, Lovebox and many more. CloakVroom is also taking corporate bookings — the biggest of which is the official relaunch later this month of London's Millennium Dome, now called the 02. CloakVroom plans to roll out a franchise in 2008, with separate vehicles covering different regions in the UK. One to start up in your own neck of the woods? Also sounds like a great service for fashion or cosmetics brands to sponsor. Website: www.cloakvroom.com
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Think consumers can predict the next big book, CD, television show or movie better than top producers and publishing houses can? Media Predict challenges users to put their virtual money where their mouths are with an online prediction market game, where players buy and sell shares based on how well they think new entertainment ventures might do in the real marketplace. Here's how it works: when users register, they get 5,000 virtual dollars to begin investing. They can scan the markets for book proposals, up-and-coming musical acts, script treatments and TV pilots. Each is valued in virtual dollars per share based on perceived potential. If shares of a particular book proposal are going for 55 dollars, for instance, the book has about a 55% chance of being published. If a project seems like it might take off, a wise investor can put his or her money behind it. Or, conversely, he or she can sell if stock seems like it might plummet. In doing so, players drive the market value—and those who have a keen eye for the next big blockbuster get rewarded for it. When a deal goes through—for instance, if a book proposal gets signed to a publisher—shares pay off at USD 100 each. And on the flipside, when a venture doesn't succeed, share value bottoms out at USD 0. With new markets being added every day, Media Predict makes for an addictive pastime for media lovers—but it's more than just a game. Similar prediction markets have had an amazing track record for forecasting election results, economic indicators, sales levels and more. And some media giants are already taking note. Touchstone Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, has agreed to publish the top-rated Media Predict book proposal by October 9th, hoping the wisdom of the crowds while provide a better barometer of success than a publisher’s gut instinct can. Entrepreneurs who want to stay on the pulse of what's hot in the entertainment world may want to keep their eyes on this one! We also think Media Predict could do with a few niche and localized siblings. More from the crowdsourcing arena: MyFootballClub CrowdSpirit and Sitepoint. Website: www.mediapredict.com Spotted by: Bill McMahon
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Dole Organic lets consumers “travel to the origin of each organic product”. By typing in a fruit sticker's three-digit Farm Code on Dole Organic's website, customers can find the story behind their banana. Each farm's section on the website includes background info, shows photos of the crops and workers and tells consumers more about the origin of Dole's organic products. As our sister website trendwatching.com states in its latest briefing: "Now that carbon footprinting has become a household term in mature consumer societies, expect consumers' desire to find out about the origins of a product to become a given. Questions no one ever asked a few years ago will become an integral part of the purchasing process. How was the product made? By whom? How did it get to its point of sale? What effects on the environment will it have after purchasing?" Opportunities? If you're in production, keep the stories and information coming. As consumers become more educated and aware, and demand more background information on the products they're shopping for, manufacturers will need to provide more transparency. In Dole's case, this would include showing how much local workers are paid, how much fruit is produced on the farms, which percentage of Dole's fruit is organically farmed, etc. For more, check out the (still) made here briefing, which describes Tesco's carbon footprint labels, Timberland's nutritional labels on shoe boxes and other examples of how companies are experimenting with 'life story labels'. Website: www.doleorganic.com
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British Zopa, the person-to-person money marketplace that we've featured in the past, is extending its geographical reach. While Zopa announced expansion to the US a while back and is operating a San Francisco office to prepare their stateside launch, a new country is being added to the roster via a different route. In Italy, Zopa's technology and brand have been licensed to a local start-up. Milan-based P2P s.r.l. is currently recruiting (tech) team members and hasn't yet announced a Zopa.it launch date, pending accreditation from the Italian banking authorities. The Italian franchise is headed up by Maurizio Pietro Sella, a former Citibank executive. Hey — franchising works well enough in the brick-and-mortar world, so it's about time we see more of it online. It makes sense, especially when complex processes and strong branding are involved, speeding up international roll-out without the main entity having to shoulder the full costs. Same could be done with other online ventures we've covered, like uShip, Igglo, Zillow and ParkAtMyHouse. As for Zopa: US, UK and Italy down — that leaves dozens of ripe markets to go! Website: www.zopa.it Spotted by: Claus Lehmann
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Those of you who haven't visited a US mall lately might have missed the fuzzy phenomenon known as Build-A-Bear Workshops, a hugely successful chain of stores that lets patrons build their own teddy. Build-A-Bear was founded in 1997 and now operates 300 stores worldwide. For one reason or another, the workshops mainly attract girls and their mothers. Boys and their fathers (and car loving daughters) no longer need to feel left out — as of Friday, they can pimp their own toys at Ridemakerz, whose first store opened in Myrtle Beach, SC. How the concept works: kids select a 10 to 12-inch chassis, body style, paint scheme and sound effects. After assembly in the customizing shop, personalization continues: customers can add decals, grilles and other elements. A free wheel chassis retails from US 12 for a basic unbranded ‘RZ Wedge’ to USD 28 for a Dodge Ram Rampage. Extras are, well, extra: USD 25 for remote control, USD 6.50 for working lights, USD 3 for a soundtrack or screeching tires and growling motors set to rock or electronic music. Each car comes with a certificate of title, personalized license plates and assembly tools, and birthday parties will be catered to starting this summer. Ridemakerz was founded with financial investment from Build-A-Bear, which is also sharing infrastructure, marketing data and back-office support with its four-wheeled sibling. “Our partnership with Build-A-Bear Workshop allows us to fire on all cylinders from the very start,” says Ridemakerz’ CEO Larry Andreini. Currently, The Ridemakerz Customizing Shop in Myrtle Beach and four outlets to be opened this year are company owned and operated, not franchised. Opportunities? Build-A-Bear has started to spread to other parts of the world, along with local copycats. But both ‘do it yourself together’ concepts still have plenty of room to grow outside the US and are great examples for (toy) manufacturers and retailers who want to add a strong layer of experience to their products. Website: www.ridemakerz.com
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